Recently the
world has been revealing itself to me metaphorically. The bird is not a bird it
is a representation of something more, it is a sign orienting my thoughts and
actions in a certain direction. Each waking moment is slowly becoming more like
a dream, in which I interpret the physical reality before me by association
with stories, myths, previous experiences and the complex web of attitudes that
form my belief structure. This interpretation of the world is not intentional.
It is as if the world is speaking to me.
The world is
never what it seems. This thesis has been confirmed repeatedly throughout
history as new paradigms have been accepted. My personal experience has led me
to accept a new paradigm and thus a new worldview. It is beyond the merely
theoretical, it has literally changed the way I “see” reality. Understanding,
and seeing the world entirely metaphorically requires and openness to an
infinite range of possible meanings of symbols placed before the observer. The
conceptual framework excludes no possibilities, but is shaped by prior
experiences. The task is to take an inventory of these past experiences and
detach yourself from them to a degree that excludes them from your conceptual
framework. This detachment does not abandon them from your mind. It only
relegates them to the unconscious.
Once we
begin to cleanse this conceptual framework, new associations of meaning are
formed when signs and symbols are presented to us. The unconscious is opened to
a greater degree in order to assign meaning to things. The conscious mind
operates to accept or deny such and such a meaning. I submit that there are
inherent value assignments in the acceptance of certain meanings. Since value
assignments are intuitive judgments, and not derived reasons (this point is
highly contentious), we then have a new intuitive way of coming to know
reality.
When we come
to know reality in a way essentially linked with value assignments and
unconscious operations exuding meaning on symbols, much of our reasonable
deliberation becomes obsolete. Daily life becomes a dance of silence, it
becomes an activity of the mind observing, listening and waiting for direction
as to what to do next. The willful choices one has become more about what value
to assign to certain interpretations of symbols, than about what actions to
take, because as metaphor exudes itself upon the observer, you are guided to
and from certain patterns of action.
This is a challenging thing to write about because it is fundamentally different mode of conscious understanding of reality. Currently this new mode is vague to me, it has been exciting and scary to enter in to. But it is providing insights I never thought possible, and presenting opportunities of courses of action which are on the whole more beneficial than before. From my experience this shift in understanding requires some degree of trust in the automatic metaphorical interpretations presented, this trust is hard to exercise, but nonetheless produces some fascinating results.
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